


coffee is fine

by alienjack



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Breakfast, Character Study, Gen, Healing, Mental Breakdown, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienjack/pseuds/alienjack
Summary: Sometimes, it only takes a very small thing to finally make everything break. Hajime thinks he's handling everything well—sure, he's got trauma, they all do. But he's fine, okay?And then they run out of orange juice. It's not like he drinks orange juice regularly; usually he has coffee in the mornings, but every now and then has a citrus craving. So it's not a big deal! He'll just drink coffee like usual, then walk circles around these islands like usual, trapped in a place identical to where they all killed each other in a simulation virus that he orchestrated—and just like that, he shatters.Luckily for Hajime, he doesn't have to do everything alone.
Relationships: Class 77 & Hinata Hajime, Hinata Hajime & Everyone
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	coffee is fine

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely unedited LMAO but I do love writing the protags dealing w their trauma

All things considered, Hajime thinks he's handling things fairly well: having such low self-esteem at sixteen that he volunteered to have his brain played with, then watching passively as (or occasionally participating out of curiosity) the world was destroyed, then getting his mind wiped and surviving a killing game, then rescuing the literal Ultimate Hope from yet another killing game, and now being stuck on an island with his not-classmates, who destroyed the world.

That makes it sound all "doom and gloom." And it is! But Hajime is dealing with it. Everyone is recovering: Akane is no longer the stick-thin, trembling version of herself that emerged from the pod; Hiyoko sits next to Peko at meals sometimes; Souda can hold a drill without trembling so hard he drops it; Nagito is... Kinder, perhaps. Still very uniquely Nagito, but closer to who he might have been before the apocalypse, Hajime thinks. There are fewer nightmares between everyone. Ibuki practices at Titty Typhoon; Mahiru still enjoys taking photos at the beach; Gundham has started cultivating an animal population on the island and keeps a canary with him now. And Hajime... He's fine.

Hajime _is_ bored, though. That's something Makoto had been worried about—Hajime being bored. But Hajime isn't Izuru, not entirely, and that was Makoto's line of thinking, too: unlike his passive neutrality as Izuru, Hajime is invested in seeing his friends succeed. There have been instances of activity: Mikan had a relapse, so Hajime had to step in as both Ultimate Therapist, Nurse, _and_ Hope (to a degree. The talent of "hope" for him is as far cry from how Makoto manifests "hope"), but his approach had also then triggered Nagito and Ibuki into despair as well. That had been an interesting day (or, interesting _few_ days, in Nagito's case). Nekomaru once rounded up Teruteru and Gundham to coach them into despair after falling into a relapse of his own. Imposter and Sonia spiralled into identity crises one evening, despairing over who they even are now—and _fuck,_ Hajime related too much when trying to handle them.

(It's like there are never any individual instances; they're all too interconnected with each other.)

But when the only interesting thing happening in your life is watching your friends struggle to work through and overcome several layers of trauma? The thought makes Hajime feel like an awful person. In his foggy memories of being Izuru, he knows he was this way too: watching them.

It makes him wonder sometimes if he's—no, _no._ He is Hajime Hinata, and he has the memories and drive to be Hajime Hinata. It's just difficult to see his memories as Izuru and then admit that those actions are his to own up to. Izuru is not a separate entity who can make amends, especially not now when Hajime has memories of almost _everything._

(not enough anesthesia—too much—bright bright bright light, how stereotypical, how _boring_ —stuck in a boring gray room waiting for the door to open at the same intervals it always does—)

He's bored. So what? His brain is so full, ready to burst, that surely just sorting and resorting everything he already knows should be sufficiently entertaining. Constantly utilizing talents he only vaguely remembers possessing should be interesting, should keep him working.

He's _tired._ He works, and he sits, and he walks circles and circles and circles. Clockwork: up at 8am, asleep by midnight if he's lucky; meals at consistent intervals, and the pattern of "who eats at the restaurant when" is now predictable; repairing and cleaning everything.

But he hasn't ever had a despair episode. He has nightmares sometimes, sure, but he is, objectively speaking, pretty okay. He's got trauma, but in comparison to everyone else, can he really count? He's fine.

They eat breakfast together. At the very least, the core group of survivors do, and over time, the others have started joining more consistently; the first to find themselves comfortable joining in had been Peko and Nekomaru, for Fuyuhiko and Akane. Next had been Gundham. For a long time, it was just been the eight of them willing to be together for a whole meal. But now they're pretty consistently all there. Teruteru always makes an overabundance of food (Hajime doesn't think Akane's appetite will ever be the way it had been in the NWP) and the class, the ex-Remnants, eat it together.

When Hajime gets to the restaurant that morning, he's the last one there. He hasn't been sleeping very well, but it's just the usual nightmares. He's tired, but he's fine. At this point, the awful dreams are nearly boring.

Sonia greets him with a "good morning!" and most of the others acknowledge him too; he offers up a general, "Yeah, morning," in response before going to the food table.

"Hey, Teruteru," he calls, scooping eggs onto his plate. "Would you mind grabbing me some orange juice while you're still in the kitchen?"

Teruteru peeks out from behind the kitchen door to say, "Sorry, Hajime, we're all out! You could have Naegi to ask for some on our next shipment?"

"Oh, okay," Hajime says.

It's not like he drinks orange juice regularly; usually he has coffee in the mornings, but every now and then has a citrus craving. So it's not a big deal! He'll just drink coffee like usual, then walk circles around these islands like usual, trapped in a place identical to where they all killed each other in a simulation virus that _he_ orchestrated, _just to see how it all panned out—_

There isn't a plate in his hands anymore. He looks down and it's on the floor in pieces. He kneels down to start gathering the shards and says, "Coffee is fine, then."

His hands are shaking—he can't quite pick up the pieces. There's egg everywhere, too.

Someone touches his shoulder. "Hajime, are you okay?"

It's Sonia.

"We can go email Naegi right now, if you want."

Mahiru.

"Yeah, you know he always gets back to you right away," Souda says.

"P-please get a broom, Hajime," Mikan pleads, watching him scoop up the fractured plate. "Y-you could s-s-seriously injure yourself..."

There's water. Where is the water coming from? Hajime takes a deep breath, ready to reassure them that he's fine, but it catches in his throat, blocked. He can barely breathe through his nose—oh. Is he... Crying? But he's fine.

Someone touches his other shoulder. Nagito. He's kneeling in broken porcelain and scrambled egg with Sonia and Nagito and he's apparently crying. All over some fucking juice.

"Hajime, what's wrong?"

So much. So much is wrong. He tries to take another breath, and it shudders through him. He tries to say, "I'm fine," but what comes out is, "They _lobotomized_ me."

Sonia takes his hand. "Oh, Hajime—"

"They _lobotomized_ me, and I-I didn't do anything to s-stop-p E-E-Eno-no _shima_ , and I p-p-put you a-all in, in, in a killing game, beca-ause I was _bored."_

"Hey, that wasn't you," Fuyuhiko snaps, but he's kneeling next to Sonia. "You snapped outta that, remember?"

"It _was_ me, it _was,"_ Hajime insists. "And I'm—every single fucking day, I—"

Nagito hugs him. It's a testament to how far he's come, initiating physical contact like this, which shocks Hajime enough that his words die. Sonia joins in on his other side, and with an affectionate eye-roll, Fuyuhiko joins in, too. He feels Akane behind him, her arms around Nagito and Sonia, and then Ibuki yells, "Group hug!!!" and they're all on the floor, pressing in.

Hajime cries, and all of his friends hold him while he does.

When his breathing evens back out, he wipes his eyes and sniffles and asks, "Can someone hand me a napkin?"

"You can just use my shirt," Nagito offers immediately. "Worthless—"

"Here," Hiyoko says, reaching past Nagito to pass a napkin to Hajime.

They all start standing back up again as Hajime blows his nose. Teruteru comes back with a broom from the kitchen, so Hajime gets up too to allow the plate and eggs to be swept away.

He walks over to the table and sits at an empty spot, offering a shaky smile to everyone. "Sorry."

"No!" Mikan responds Immediately. Her voice is as close to 'commanding' as it'll ever get. "You... D-don't need to apologize-ze f-for..."

She trails off, confidence quickly losing momentum, but the sentiment is there. Mikan has learned to stop apologizing for existing—Hajime shouldn't apologize for breaking down, too. Not when he's helped all of them through their own breakdowns.

"Okay," he acknowledges. "Thank you."

"That's more like it," Akane grins.

He drinks coffee with breakfast, eats toast and bacon and listens to his friends talk. Afterward, he'll walk the circuit of the islands; Peko will join him for a while, and then Nagito. He'll eat lunch with Souda and Gundham, and after that he'll go talk to Makoto. The next boat that comes will have orange juice and canned oranges and seeds to plant trees. There will be all their other standard supplies, of course: soaps and gardening supplies and tampons and frozen meat and bread; but there will also be four 1,500-piece puzzles, one of which is almost entirely blue. It will take Hajime a week to finish all of them, if he sits down and works on them with focus. Instead, one of the puzzles will be in the game room at the bottom of the hotel restaurant, and over time it will get completed by everyone who stops for a moment to put a couple pieces together. With the other three, Hajime will take his time, enjoying the small difficulties.

He's not fine. It'll take a very long time for _any_ of them to be (or maybe, none of them will ever actually be fine again), but right now they're okay. More importantly, they aren't alone. Right now, Ibuki and Souda and Hiyoko are all yelling, trying to talk over each other, and Mahiru says something that makes Mikan laugh, and Sonia is stealing a piece of bacon from Gundham's plate, and Nagito passes Hajime the jar of strawberry jam. Right now, Hajime is tired, because crying is always exhausting, but it's not a terrible kind of tired. Right now, Hajime feels... Lighter, maybe. Like maybe the future won't be so bad.

Maybe it's hope. Maybe it's _peace._


End file.
